News
Facing a barrage of criticism, Mayor Charlie Hales called Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith tonight to apologize for suggestive remarks and gestures made toward her by one of his top aides at a Thursday night event.But Hales made no promises of what actions he would take regarding Baruti Atharee, one of the most prominent African-American officials in the city.As WW first reported Sunday ...
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Baruti Artharee says he's apologized for comments at Thursday event

News
A top aide to Mayor Charlie Hales is under fire for suggestive remarks and gestures he allegedly made toward Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith at a Thursday night event.WW has learned the aide, Baruti Artharee, 60, and about 40 others gathered Thursday at the Quartet Restaurant at Riverplace. The purpose of the event, which was arranged by Bernie Foster, the publisher of The Skanner newspaper, ...
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News
A 15-year-old Beaverton girl jumped to her death from the Vista Bridge yesterday, the latest in a string of well-documented suicides on the historic bridge.City leaders have come up with a plan that would place barriers on Southwest Portland bridge and still satisfy the Oregon Office of Historic Preservation. The price tag? $2.5 million, says Portland Commissioner and new Bureau of Transportation ...
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Mayor makes ambitous environmental and river promises in UN speech

News
Mayor Charlie Hales made bold pledges in a speech to delegates from the United Nations Environment Programme this morning—promising that Portland city government will reduce its carbon emissions by half in 17 years, and make bicycles the preferred mode of transportation for all trips under three miles in 10 years. Hales also made it clear that cleaning up the toxic Willamette River will be his office's ...
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News Stories
In the final weeks of writing his first budget, Mayor
Charlie Hales restored money to dozens of city programs he had suggested
cutting: the Police Bureau’s Mounted Patrol Unit, a county-run ment
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News
The head of the Portland fire union is disputing Mayor Charlie Hales' claim that the city's new budget includes no firefighter layoffs. Portland Firefighters' Association President Alan Ferschweiler says the new budget actually requires 13 fire bureau layoffs—it just delays the pink slips by three months.Hales' budget takes effect June 30, and provides three months of "bridge funding"——short-term ...
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Hales pledges to fight panhandling downtown. It’s not clear how he wins.

News Stories
No matter where he travels, the street kid known as Kidd always knows where he wants to end up.
With a ragged goatee
and barely as tall as a sidewalk mailbox, Kidd, who is in his early 20s,
says
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The retail politics of the Hales budget creates winners and losers.

City Hall
Politicians don’t usually gain support by making budget cuts.But the startling thing about Mayor Charlie Hales’ first budget, released April 30, is how the mayor’s cutting of $21.5 million has b
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